These guys who called themselves disciples had given up everything and put their lives on hold to follow this Jesus. He was God – he was invincible. He was sent to save the world. That kind of story had to have a happy ending. And so even when the story started to go off the rails, I have to think that they convinced themselves deep down that everything was going to be okay – even when Jesus got arrested, and beaten, and mocked. Maybe even when he was walking up the hill with his cross. Maybe even right up to the very end. Because the story wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Has life ever jerked the floor right out from under you?

We lose people we shouldn’t have to live without. We get unspeakable diagnoses. Marriages crumble, and families disintegrate. People fall apart. The story ends all wrong.

Our CF family has experienced staggering losses. Moments where the story has come to a scraping halt in the wrong place. It can’t end this way – it just can’t. The story ends all wrong.

There’s always a good long pause after dynamics of a person’s life are completely shifted. Days that feel like they go on for years, and nights that last even longer. Three days must have felt like an eternity. What was left for them? Their Jesus – the superhero revolutionary God-man on whom they’d hung all their hopes and with whom they’d set out to change the world – he was just gone. How are you supposed to deal with something like that?

And so they waited and gathered and grieved. Because that’s what we do, in the face of great loss. We hug and cry and say awkward things that too often start with “well at least…” and we bring food and we try to love each other more and better, because what else is there to do?

We have an advantage over the disciples because we know the ending of the Jesus story. We know there is a happy ending after all. We know that they only have to wait three days before this sad story comes untrue. And we know they get their Jesus back and he puts everything to rights and sets them on a path of purpose. Despite this advantage, we know exactly where the disciples were – hopeless, sitting in their pain and waiting. This part of the story stings, because it feels all too familiar and a little too close to home.

On this Good Friday, let’s take a pause in the dark part of the story. Jesus is gone. The world is in the middle of skipping a beat. There’s burying and gathering and waiting. Hope died with the one who was supposed to save the world. There’s nothing left to do but wait.